Scorned in the impassable now
a medievalist’s economics of the wealthy dead.
Flemish guts and an Archbishop’s head
but London sucked you in, and down.
Ball preached Christ of the descamisados,
whose scythe would trim the catholic bells.
The bloody equation for the degrees of hell
conceived by titular handers-down of loss.
The miracle was the boyhood
of the King. Jack Straw strutted the dooms-
day line, how could a king’s word be good?
Then all was gone again, driven to earth, the loom
continuing to weave under the weight of blood.
And the tapestry? Over a boy-king’s bed, in an empty room.